While GameCritics will soon post a full review of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, the good people at Bethesda were kind enough to supply a code specifically to test out this rework on Playstation 5 Pro. Surely Sony’s beefy machine will have no problems running a gussied-up eighteen-year-old game?
I’ve been writing these lists for a while now, and I always try to sum up how i’m feeling about the game industry at that particular moment in time. In 2023 I wrote about the industry writ large essentially being a dumpster fire, and basically all of the bad stuff from 2023 got exponentially worse. 2024 was actually the year where I looked at my wife and said “if our children come to us and say they want to make a career in videogaming, it is our duty as their parents to steer them away from that”.
The idea of a “Mid-Gen Refresh” for videogame consoles is still very much in its infancy, and with absolutely no idea what the next generation of hardware is going to look like (or when it will happen), I’m having difficulty labeling it a “trend” either. Microsoft does not seem to have much interest in a Series X…X(?) as a follow-up to the XBox One X, so Sony seem like the only ones crazy enough to consider such a thing as even necessary.
HIGH Shadows of the Damned is still one wild trip well worth experiencing.
LOW Realizing it’s not a remaster.
WTF The first noticeable slowdown on my PS5 Pro was from this thirteen-year old title.
HIGH A great improvement over the previous (!) remaster.
LOW Has a somewhat overinflated reputation that may disappoint first time players.
WTF This game is twenty and I feel exceptionally old.
HIGH Deals well with important, interesting themes…
LOW …but I’ve played many games that hit the same themes.
WTF There’s a lot of WTF. I can’t narrow it down.
HIGH Holy Hell do I love the potential of the Gold Master Series
LOW …Sure feels like we should have a Jeff Minter Story Part II.
WTF The Konix Multi-System.
HIGH Dondoku Island
LOW Dondoku Island ends
WTF I don’t know how to tell my friends on Dondoku Island that they’re terrifying
HIGH It just gets better and better and better…
LOW …Which is good because it doesn’t start well.
WTF The quality of Ubisoft’s voicework makes me question why I quit acting.
We have got to come up with a better name for Metroidvanias than “Metroidvania”.
I’m stealing this from Nextlander Podcast host Alex Navarro because I simply can’t put it any better myself — this year in videogames was an astoundingly good one for products, and a miserable one for everyone who made those products.